Libya's role in Africa

About 30 African leaders gathered in a huge tent on Monday for the extraordinary summit on solving the continent's trouble hot spots, especially the war-ravaged Somalia and Sudan's restive Darfur. But they failed to propose any substantial steps to do so in the one-day summit and amid a festive atmosphere.

The timing of the summit was more interesting than the agreement they reached and the turnout of the African leaders to the summit on the eve of Libya's national gala is a boost to Ghaddafi, said the analysts.

Located on Africa's Mediterranean coast, Libya with a population of about 6.3 million has in recent years attached great importance to relations with other African countries.

To play a significant role on the African continent and strengthen Libya's international influence have been one of the pillars of Libya's Africa policy, observers said.

Sun Lizhou, a scholar with Peking International Studies, said summoning a summit on continental conflicts is part of Ghaddafi's efforts to build Libya's reputation as peace lover and responsible and to erase its "rogue country" tag labelled by Western countries.

Libya also intends to show its influence in Africa to the world, especially to the West, and boost its bargaining chips in dealing with the Western countries, said Sun.

In his opening speech, Ghaddafi once again underlined the importance of African unification, saying that African countries should solve the conflicts by themselves thus leaving no room for foreign powers to interfere.

The Libyan leader called on leaders of Africa not to give any value to national borders, saying that the borders created by occupation would disappear to give way to one African space, one common market, one currency, one central bank, one defensive power and one identity.

Ghaddafi has been long campaigning to immediately establish a union government of Africa, saying it is the only way to meet the challenges of globalization, fighting poverty and resolving conflicts without Western interference.

But the so-called gradualists, mainly south and east African leaders grouped around former South African President Thabo Mbeki, oppose an immediate integration.

They argue that currently African nations should first focus on improving their respective sociopolitical systems, strengthening regional cooperation, and solving their own peace and development problems.

Despite Ghaddafi's long-term campaign, plans of integration have long garnered verbal support but always failed to materialize given a continent having been struggling to fight poverty and unrest for decades.

Another major reason hampering the integration process is the huge differences and diversity of politics, economy, culture and religion on the continent, observers said.

(Xinhua News Agency September 3, 2009)